Recently at a family event, my cousin and I sat next to each other with our children and watched the chaos before us.

We noticed who was talking to who, which person was snapping at which relative. Who was laughing. Who was grimacing. Who was bored. It struck us that there was a prevailing feeling of being constantly on defense.

"I think the women in our family are all on defense. All the time." I said.

"What do you mean by that?" she quipped.

It is impossible to say anything in our family without someone hearing "this is about me. Alll about me. What is this person REALLY saying about ME???"

For example. I said something slightly critical to my mother about an uncle. Her response? "Well he's my brother, of course I still have to love him."

Um. Yeah, that wasn't a comment about YOU and what YOU should be doing. I was commenting on HIM and HIS actions.

Cousin and I have vowed to never be defensive in our relationship. It's hard. I'm on child two and she's on child one. When I was on child one, she was, obviously, childless. So our opinions were quite different on some topics. When we each had one child, our opinions gravitated closer. Now that I'm onto child number two, I feel my opinion changing again.

But I refuse to be at loggerheads with her over anything. I refuse to be defensive.